The Day I Woke Up
by top10secrets
Summary: Follows Alice's story - from first waking as a vampire, finding Jasper, finding the Cullens. Original Cannnon
1. Chapter 1 Heaven

_**Hello, This is my very first attempt at fanfic. I hope you enjoy it. **_

_**After seeing the movie Twilight, I thought Jasper really didnt get a fair shake, and that Alice and Jasper are the most interesting characters. So, I hope I will explore their history and showcase them well over the next few chapters. **_

_**I'd love to hear your reviews. thanks.**_

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The pain was excrutiating, yes, but it was the racing and erratic beat of my heart that pulled me out of a very deep sleep. All four chambers of my heart were squeezing so quickly, that no blood could possibly circulate. Panic immediately set in, and I was suddenly aware that I was also hyperventilating. A burning pain shot down one of my arms.

"So this is what a heart attack feels like?," I thought.

I shut my eyes tight, and tried to concentrate enough to make a few last minute prayers but the only thing that came to mind was "now I lay myself down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take". I hoped that would be good enough to win some favor in heaven, and repeated the little couplet over and over again.

It's strange how slowly time passes in a moment of panic. In a few moments, I had whispered the prayer nearly a hundred times, or perhaps more than an hour had passed. I couldn't be sure. Suddenly the frantic flutter of my heart stopped, interrupting my chant which I had unconsciously been reciting in rhythm to the beat. Ka-thud. The heart gave one more shot, but couldn't start up a new song. Ka-th. A weaker, slower start this time.

And then there was no song from my body at all. Even that sharp heat seemed to be falling away from my limbs.

The relief was very sweet indeed, and as I was still alert and cognitive I figured I must be beginning my eternal life in heaven. Tentatively I opened my eyes. My bright and colorful surroundings brought an instant smile to my lips. Gears and metal bits, all glossy with black or red paint or the natural luster of steel, hung on the walls from sleek little hooks. Surveying the room a little further, I found two automobiles behind me in various states of repair.

"An auto shop in heaven?" A strange notion, but why not? I'm sure plenty of people love cars, and I imagine heaven is a very large place to hold all the people who have ever died before me. A car would be a logical way to cross such distances. "Are there cavemen in heaven? I wonder what they think of the cars?"

A hundred thoughts like that fired through my mind in seconds. I had to stop, and remind myself where I was, and that there was surely much, much more to see. I was on my feet as soon as I thought to stand and look for an exit. It felt good to stand. I felt light and the sudden urge to stretch my limbs was intense. Lifting my arms overhead, I bent my torso to the left, and then to the right. Effortless. I extended my hands out to the sides, and felt every fiber of my muscles as they unwound in waves, ending in a flourish of my fingertips. Elegant. I stretched my leg in front of me, pointing and flexing my bare foot. Even against the empty air, I could feel the power in my little calf. I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly hopped, skipped and spun around the room, laughing with pure joy at the ease in which I moved.

The door at the front of the shop was easy enough to find, however, it must have been a very old building, because the wooden door fell off its hinges and the doorknob crumbled in my hand as soon as I touched it. Immediately I was overcome with guilt for ruining this little corner of heaven so soon after arriving here. I tried to pick up the door and prop it up against the shop wall, but it was as if the door was made of saltine crackers - every where I touched it, it just snapped in half. I swept the remains of the door and knob away with my toe and looked around to see if God had noticed my trespass.

That's when the stars caught my eye. They were white against the navy blue of the night sky, and each seemed to radiate a slightly different shade of white in their little streamers. "Fascinating! I had always pictured heaven as so otherworldly, that there would be nothing in the sky at all."

Scanning the skyline, I began to wonder if anything I had assumed about heaven was correct. Instead of streets paved in gold, and chubby cherubs strumming at harps, this looked more like an ordinary street, filled with ordinary businesses. A hat shop, a grocer, a bakery, all closed for the night. "Why would heaven need shops? And pity the poor soul who has to work in that shop here in heaven!"

Suddenly everything changed.

I was in a bright and noisy room full of people, a handsome young man with curly blonde hair stood in front of me. He smiled an easy grin, and took my hands in his. "I love you, Alice", he said pulling my hands up to his lips and kissing each in turn.

Just as suddenly, he was gone, and I was back on the silent city street.

"What on earth was that?!" I asked myself aloud, and was startled by the volume of my voice, and the resulting echo that seemed to bounce back and forth along the storefronts all the way down the street. Well, at least it was a very warm welcome to heaven message. For a moment, I wondered if that was God himself, but dismissed the idea because Our Heavenly Father must be an old man, and this angel could not have been older than twenty.

Yes, the more I thought of it, the more I liked heaven. At least I could still go shopping.

The sharp click of heels against the cobblestone street startled me. I looked up and down the street but did not find the owner of said shoes. Each click grew closer and seemed to physically hit my eardrum more and more. I thought for a moment of running away. However, part of me also welcomed the stranger, because I didn't really know where I should be, or how to get in touch with my loved ones here in heaven, whoever they might be. Odd, that I can't picture even one family member. It must have been a long time since I saw them last.

From around the corner, a woman in a dark overcoat with a hat pulled down over hear ears appeared. In her arms, she carried a stack of books.

"Hello?", I spoke softly to the woman, and smiled at the musical tone of my voice.

She looked up quickly, "Oh, I didn't see you th...." She stopped mid-sentence, when she met my eyes. Then her eyes fell to my chest, and she started to stumble backwards.

Then I inhaled her scent.

I was a wonderful mix of salt and iron, and a different odor that I still haven't found the right word to describe. Lastly a little hint of flowers and alcohol layered the scent from behind. A bitter taste filled my mouth.

I sprung without warning, even to myself, and was completely shocked to find my mouth on her neck. In that moment, I became the animal. The heavy warmth of the woman's blood felt like slipping into a warm springs - calming, relaxing, and warming me from head to toe.

All too soon, the well ran dry, and I held in my arms the crumpled remains of the woman. Her head hung towards one shoulder, and one arm bent at a very unnatural angle. Repulsed by what I had done, I jumped back and vomited a small stream of blood. That was clearly a mistake, because as soon as I caught the scent of that blood, I wanted to take it back in again. I rubbed my hand in the crimson puddle on the street and began to lick my fingers and palm.

"This is crazy!" I said to myself in a panic. I stood and paced frantically in circles around the woman. "Not good, not good, not good" I mumbled, looking down at the crumpled body already too pale to call human any more. Then I paced some more.

"Gottta hide this, gotta..." I looked up and down the sidewalk, and was suddenly glad it was so late at night and that the streets were empty. I scooped the body up off ground, and turned back towards the auto shop. I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a store window and had to look twice to confirm what I was seeing. A tiny little lady, with an impossibly pale face framed by a shock of wild, jet black hair was carrying a woman nearly twice her size. I had to tilt my head from side to side to confirm that that reflection was really me.

"No time to window gaze" I reminded my self and darted into the auto shop. I stuffed the woman into a large shipping container I found at the back of the store, and shut the lid.

Still shaken, I found a tiny bathroom at the rear of the shop, and looked at myself in the cloudy mirror. Now the full realization of what made the woman freeze in terror upon meeting my eyes hit me. I was more than an animal, I was a monster. My eyes were red like the lipstick movie stars wore in the magazines, but it was not a glamorous look in this instance. Additionally, heavy black blood was dried on my neck, matted in my hair, and down the front of my dress. It was old blood, having none of that salty rich odor like the woman I'd just drained. Could it be my own?

Suddenly the mirror turned to a lush stand of trees, flowing past me as I ran. And I ran hard and fast, and my nose was filled with the scent of blood. Three children were throwing stones into a river, when I grabbed them and drained them.

I shook my head, and was again with the mirror in the little auto shop.

But as soon as my head stopped shaking, I was again somewhere else. Pulling the last warm syrup from a man's wrist in some dark alley; following a teenager through a funfair admiring the strong pulse in his neck. Image after image flowed through me. Always me, I was always the one killing someone for the blood.

I was beginning to think that this was not heaven after all.


	2. Chapter 2 Earth

I stood very still, for a very long time, studying my face.

"Am I a monster now?" I thought as I conjured up all the images I could remember of Count Dracula and other folklore of that ilk. The longer I studied the trail of blood from my neck through my long hair and dripping down onto my skirt the more clearly I saw a small oval mark on my porcelain skin, just behind my ear. Not just an oval, but several distinct marks of teeth.

I shivered. I had no memory of how this came to pass.

That bitter taste crept back into my mouth, and try as I might, my mind kept wandering back to the memory of warm blood on my tongue, running down my throat. How I'd love to swallow her again.

Disgusted with myself, I tore off my dress and all the dried blood with it. I found a pair of men's coveralls hanging on a hook on the backside of the bathroom door. They were hopelessly oversized, but a few rolls of the cuffs and sleeves and it was manageable. A pair of old scissors sat on the edge of the sink, and I hacked away the blood caked parts of my hair, then cut the other side to match. It was a funny little bob haircut, not too far from the current fashion trend, but the lazy waves in my hair just made the ends flair out at ear level.

If only there were some way to change my eyes as quickly. I just wanted to feel like myself, like Alice.

Again, I stared at my reflection, trying to make sense of the day. I had awoken in heaven and ended here in a kind of hell on earth. I lost my past, I wasn't even sure where I was, and I was alone in my own horror.

Outside, I heard the first rustling of birds waking to the morning light and announcing their location to the neighboring birds in a series of hesitant chirps and tweets. If this was still the land of the living, that means people would soon wake and arrive to work, and I didn't want to be caught here, with the door in pieces, my blood stained clothes at my feet and a lifeless woman in the storage room.

So I ran.

Running was a delight. I had a rough idea how fast I was going by the speed in which buildings whizzed past me, yet somehow I still had the time to see them in great detail: all the windows and the people moving about inside them. I felt like a stag bounding through the forest for my strides were wide and my foot hit the ground on the balls of my feet only to bounce right up again as I propelled to the next foothold.

I ran right through the town, and kept right on running when I hit the first small farmsteads. I had no idea where I was headed, heck I didn't even know where I was coming from, I only knew that running made me feel free.

The farms grew larger, and the sky lighter. Then I caught a delicious scent in the air and changed course to investigate. I was nearly on top of them before I realized the humans were the source of my attraction. In a split second I recognized the three children from one of the earlier flashes I had while looking in the mirror at the auto shop. Just as I had seen, here they were throwing rocks into the river, completely unaware that I was two stag leaps away from them.

The first boy, I threw to the ground with such force, he was knocked unconscious immediately, the other I grabbed by the neck in the crook of my arm and held him tight to me. The smallest girl, with tight ringlet curls bouncing across her shoulders, came immediately to my lips. Her blood was sweet, almost honey flavored but lacked the heavy, filling weight of the first woman I had drank from. I tossed her aside, as her brother screamed.

His fear made his blood pump faster through his little heart and heat ooze from him, warming my arm and chest. I felt lightheaded and I drained him, and thrilled as if his energy had also translated into my body as it left his.

"More, more" the animal inside me chanted and I had to admit, it sounded like a great idea.

I took the third child in my arms, and lapped up his blood slowly. This was dessert after a hearty meal, and I was in no hurry to rush through it.

That's when I noticed little rainbow bursts of light dancing across his face and neck. I looked behind me, to see where the light was coming from, and saw nothing but fields and pale blue sky. Looking back at the boy, I saw my own arm sparkling in the sunlight. I twisted it from side and side and watched the reflected light play across the river's surface, and grass, and the limp children. It was beautiful in a most macabre way.

I left the kids right there at the riverbank, and leapt through the field, taking shelter in a nearby abandoned barn. The blood of four innocent people sloshed around in my gut.

"Think, Alice, think" I spoke as I again began to pace the length of the barn. "Is this how it's going to be now?"

As if by speaking the question aloud, I was assaulted by the answer in a flood of images like watching a hundred motion pictures all cut and spliced together with no storyline. In some scenes I watched myself from a distance, moving inhumanly fast upon my victim, and tearing my teeth into their delicate necks. It was horrifying to see myself like that - so strong and graceful even as I moved in for the kill. But worse, was the images I saw from my own perspective, because they came with all the bodily sensations too - the warm skin under my hands, the hot blood in my throat, and the sharp twist in my gut as the blood hit. At the same time as I was repulsed by the horror of so many deaths, I was also incredibly excited by the sight and smell of so much blood.

"I guess it is," I spoke defeated, and fell down to my knees sobbing and covering my face with my hands. My breathing was irregular, and my back heaved with each awkward but deep inhale. I carried on that way for a long time, unable to stop the flood of emotion. When I started to regain control, I lifted my head and wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands and was surprised to find them bone dry. Apparently I had a few things to learn about my new body.

Forced to face facts, I sat up again and tried to set a plan. I always felt better with a list of things to do.

"Clearly, staying in the cities wont do. I'd end up eating all the people around me and someone is bound to notice when a whole apartment complex ends up dead." I tried to laugh a little at the absurd idea of little old me taking down a whole building worth of people in just a few days. But it wasn't very funny. "Even if I managed to spread my meals across a city, a rash of murders like that would surely get noticed. Yes, sticking to the outskirts of towns makes the most sense. Feed once, and then move on to the next town before feeding again. By the time any police force put the murders together and started to look for me, I'd be long gone."

Just as I was making these plans, I was again interrupted by another flash vision. A large man with a axe gripped tightly at this side was coming straight for the little rickety barn I was hiding in. He had the look of revenge in his eyes.

That was all the warning I needed, true or not, I was leaving.


End file.
